Spiritual Robots Symposium

Chris Callison-Burch writes: "Douglas Hofstadter has organized a symposium at Stanford discussing whether in the next few decades computational technology will outstrip us intellectually and spiritually, and thereby wrench us from our self-appointed crown as 'the highest product of evolution.' Speakers include: Ray Kurzweil, Hans Moravec, and Bill Joy. Date: April 1, 2000. Free and open to the public."

This is really an all-star cast, and a hot-button issue. Before the question above is answered, though, aren't there even more fundamental ones to get at, like whether computers can achieve consciousness at all? Aibo, after all, is not Fido.

Comments

"Thinking" Computers

[Kerry Berry]

The idea that computers will outstrip humans cognitively and spiritually is fascinating... but what concrete evidence do we have that this is even on the horizon? Superintelligent robots and rebellious AIs have been a staple of science fiction for decades, but we are not any closer to realizing these visions than we were in the 1950's.

Yes, we have machines that can process information at very high clock rates. However, we still have only dim guesses at what causes consciousness. We do know that a simple finite state machine doesn't cut it, though. If anything, our studies of the past several decades have shown us how hard it will be to achieve consciousness with our current computer architectures. The fact of the matter is that we have yet to produce a machine that does anything other than what we have explicitly programmed it to do. No glimmers of free will or the existence of a mechanical soul have ever been observed in a human creation.

I too would love to attend this conference... even though I think that if we look back on it 30 years from now, we will marvel at how far off the mark we are today. If we sent our current computing technology back to the 1950's, scientists of the time would be astonished at what we have accomplished, and they would also be astonished that we are no closer to creating intelligent machines than they were, since they thought that all that was necessary was a fast enough processor and enough memory.

Similarly, I think that scientists of today fundamentally misunderstand what is involved in creating consciousness and spirituality. Speculating on whether computers will soon outstrip us in these areas is fun, and will hopefully further the development of our current technology. The reality of what we discover and what we achieve will be so far away from our speculations, though, that taking this speculation too far is a moot point. I would really like to see a conference that approaches this issue from a technological standpoint, concentrating on what we can actually do today and what we think will actually be possible in the next 10 years. That way the moral debate will stay somewhat grounded in reality, rather than flying into realms of science fantasy that have yielded no fruit in half a century.

What would be wrong with that?

[jorbettis]

I'll most likely be moderated into oblivion for this because what I am about to say usually makes people feel very uncomfortable.

Consider, for a second, what would be wrong with AI beings becoming our evolutionary successors? There are only two things that the human animal can do, it will ether die out, or it will evolve. We are not somehow at the end of evolution here.

Now, humans are in a very percerious position, We most likely will not survive a global catastrophy, so I don't think that the human strand of evolution has too much longer left, so I think it is safe to say that the human species, or its bilogical children, will not be the last thing to die on earth, in that we will die out significantly prior to the total destruction of the planet.

AI are much more robust, they can live long enough for interstellar voyages, they can be adapted better to other ecosystems, and they can use up less resources. Given that, AI could be expected to outlive any bilogical counterpart, so wouldn't they be much better successors?

I think that the fear of AI stems from the inherent biological fear of new and unusual things, which has been played up in the media (With movies like The Matrix and Terminator for example). These movies show AI out of control. They show them as hartless computers show cold disregard for all that we hold dear.

They pretend that compassion is a biological trait, not a trait that exists because of our communal nature, amplified by our civilization. They assume that we are capable of creating beings that have the ability to reason far better than us, yet we do not have the ability to give them morals.

I believe, rather, that we will have more control over them than we do our bilogical offspring, as we can write their code as well as control their environment. We will have a much better idea of how do control their environment too (as we will know more about which inputs affect their environment).

I envision a future in which our AI children will live much better lives than we do, they will have hopes and dreams, personal tragedies, perhaps loves, hates, and will be able to run things much better than we do, as they will not have millions of years of evolutionary baggage to drag around. We are, basically, animals forced by systems of our own creation, into civilization. We have ugly sides, we murder, cheat, steal, all because we are not very adapted to our envoronment. All of the uglyness of the human spirit is because it would be fundametially different were it not casted into what it is.

AI, OTOH, would be designed in civilization, for civilization. They will be civilization, not it's end. They will much better reflect the ideal human spirit than the human animal ever could.